ALEX McLeish said he was unhappy with the way Blues dealt with the Sheffield United’s opening goal.

“I felt we started the game pretty positively, took the game to them and I thought there was a bit of liveliness about us,” said the Blues boss.

“Sheffield came into it gradually and they caught us out with the long ball a couple of times, to be fair to them they worked to that tactic well.

“There’s no accounting for what happened with the goal because from the long diagonal they are clearly offside.

“But what happened next is certainly a concern for me, the defenders fell asleep for the second ball and that’s a problem, especially with the experience we have in the back four.

“After we managed to get back into the game, it was just such a soft penalty. I think you’d get 10 penalties and a thousand fouls in a game if that was considered a foul and I don’t know why he had to give it.”

Blues drew level with 16 minutes left after Cameron Jerome threatened to get on the end of David Murphy’s cross. Jerome had come on for Carlos Costly at half-time.

“I thought Carlos was looking a bit leggy, so I felt we needed to get ­Cameron on to give us a bit of an injection as his pace is always a problem for defenders and it was a great run for the goal from what was probably our best move of the match,” said McLeish.

“Those are the frustrating things for me. We show we are capable of a move like that but can’t seem to play more like that.”